Books: Laperouse
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Ernest Scott >> Laperouse
If the navigator of the French King had discovered southern Australia,
and settlement had followed, it is not to be supposed that Great
Britain would have opposed the plans of France; for Australia then was
not the Australia that we know, and England had very little use even
for the bit she secured. Unthinking people might suppose that the
French Revolution meant very little to us. Indeed, unthinking people
are very apt to suppose that we can go our own way without regarding
what takes place elsewhere. They do not realise that the world is one,
and that the policies of nations interact upon each other. In point of
fact, the Revolution meant a great deal to Australia. This country is,
indeed, an island far from Europe, but the threads of her history are
entwined with those of European history in a very curious and
often intricate fashion. The French Revolution and the era of Napoleon,
if we understand their consequences, really concern us quite as much
as, say, the gold discoveries and the accomplishment of Federation.
Chapter V.
THE EARLY PART OF THE VOYAGE.
The expedition sailed from Brest rather sooner than had at first been
contemplated, on August 1, 1785, and doubled Cape Horn in January of
the following year. Some weeks were spent on the coast of Chili; and
the remarks of Laperouse concerning the manners of the Spanish rulers
of the country cover some of his most entertaining pages. He has an eye
for the picturesque, a kindly feeling for all well-disposed people, a
pleasant touch in describing customs, and shrewd judgment in estimating
character. These qualities make him an agreeable writer of travels.
They are fairly illustrated by the passages in which he describes the
people of the city of Concepcion. Take his account of the ladies:
"The dress of these ladies, extremely different from what we have been
accustomed to see, consists of a plaited petticoat, tied considerably
below the waist; stockings striped red, blue and white; and shoes so
short that the toes are bent under the ball of the foot so as to make
it appear nearly round. Their hair is without powder and is divided
into small braids behind, hanging over the shoulders. Their bodice is
generally of gold or silver stuff, over which there are two short
cloaks, that underneath of muslin and the other of wool of different
colours, blue, yellow and pink. The upper one is drawn over the
head when they are in the streets and the weather is cold; but within
doors it is usual to place it on their knees; and there is a game
played with the muslin cloak by continually shifting it about, in which
the ladies of Concepcion display considerable grace. They are for the
most part handsome, and of so polite and pleasing manners that there is
certainly no maritime town in Europe where strangers are received with
so much attention and kindness."
At this city Laperouse met the adventurous Irishman, Ambrose O'Higgins,
who by reason of his conspicuous military abilities became commander of
the Spanish forces in Chili, and afterwards Viceroy of Peru. His name
originally was simply Higgins, but he prefixed the "O" when he
blossomed into a Spanish Don, "as being more aristocratic." He was the
father of the still more famous Bernardo O'Higgins, "the Washington of
Chili," who led the revolt against Spanish rule and became first
president of the Chilian Republic in 1818. Laperouse at once conceived
an attachment for O'Higgins, "a man of extraordinary activity," and one
"adored in the country."
In April, 1786, the expedition was at Easter Island, where the
inhabitants appeared to be a set of cunning and hypocritical thieves,
who "robbed us of everything which it was possible for them to carry
off." Steering north, the Sandwich Islands were reached early in May.
Here Laperouse liked the people, "though my prejudices were
strong against them on account of the death of Captain Cook." A passage
in the commander's narrative gives his opinion on the annexation of the
countries of native races by Europeans, and shows that, in common with
very many of his countrymen, he was much influenced by the ideas of
Rousseau, then an intellectual force in France--
"Though the French were the first who, in modern times, had landed on
the island of Mowee, I did not think it my duty to take possession in
the name of the King. The customs of Europeans on such occasions are
completely ridiculous. Philosophers must lament to see that men, for no
better reason than because they are in possession of firearms and
bayonets, should have no regard for the rights of sixty thousand of
their fellow creatures, and should consider as an object of conquest a
land fertilised by the painful exertions of its inhabitants, and for
many ages the tomb of their ancestors. These islands have fortunately
been discovered at a period when religion no longer serves as a pretext
for violence and rapine. Modern navigators have no other object in
describing the manners of remote nations than that of completing the
history of man; and the knowledge they endeavour to diffuse has for its
sole aim to render the people they visit more happy, and to augment
their means of subsistence."
If Laperouse could see the map of the Pacific to-day he would find its
groups of islands all enclosed within coloured rings, indicating
possession by the great Powers of the world. He would be puzzled
and pained by the change. But the history of the political movements
leading to the parcelling out of seas and lands among strong States
would interest him, and he would realise that the day of feeble
isolation has gone. Nothing would make him marvel more than the
floating of the Stars and Stripes over Hawaii, for he knew that flag
during the American War of Independence. It was adopted as the flag of
the United States in 1777, and during the campaign the golden lilies of
the standard of France fluttered from many masts in co-operation with
it. Truly a century and a quarter has brought about a wonderful change,
not only in the face of the globe and in the management of its affairs,
but still more radically in the ideas of men and in the motives that
sway their activities!
The geographical work done by Laperouse in this part of the Pacific was
of much importance. It removed from the chart five or six islands which
had no existence, having been marked down erroneously by previous
navigators. From this region the expedition sailed to Alaska, on the
north-west coast of North America. Cook had explored here "with that
courage and perseverance of which all Europe knows him to have been
capable," wrote Laperouse, never failing to use an opportunity of
expressing admiration for his illustrious predecessor. But there was
still useful work to do, and the French occupied their time very
profitably with it from June to August. Then their ships sailed down
the western coast of America to California, struck east across
the Pacific to the Ladrones, and made for Macao in China--then as now
a Portugese possession--reaching that port in January, 1787.
The Philippines were next visited, and Laperouse formed pleasant
impressions of Manilla. It is clear from his way of alluding to the
customs of the Spanish inhabitants that the French captain was not a
tobacco smoker. It was surprising to him that "their passion for
smoking this narcotic is so immoderate that there is not an instant of
the day in which either a man or woman is without a cigar;" and it is
equally surprising to us that the French editor of the history of the
voyage found it necessary to explain in a footnote that a cigar is "a
small roll of tobacco which is smoked without the assistance of a
pipe." But cigars were then little known in Europe, except among
sailors and travellers who had visited the Spanish colonies; and the
very spelling of the word was not fixed. In English voyages it appears
as "seegar," "segar," and "sagar."
Formosa was visited in April, northern Japan in May, and the
investigation of the north-eastern coasts of Asia occupied until
October.
A passage in a letter from Laperouse to Fleurieu is worth quoting for
two reasons. It throws some light on the difficulties of navigation in
unknown seas, and upon the commander's severe application to duty; and
it also serves to remind us that Japan, now so potent a factor in the
politics of the East and of the whole Pacific, had not then emerged
from the barbarian exclusiveness towards foreigners, which she
had maintained since Europe commenced to exploit Asia. In the middle of
the seventeenth century she had expelled the Spaniards and the
Portugese with much bloodshed, and had closed her ports to all traders
except the Chinese and the Dutch, who were confined to a prescribed
area at Nagasaki. Intercourse with all other foreign peoples was
strictly forbidden. Even as late as 1842 it was commanded that if any
foreign vessel were driven by distress or tempestuous weather into a
Japanese port, she might only remain so long as was necessary to meet
her wants, and must then depart. Laperouse knew of this jealous
Japanese antipathy to foreign visitors, and, as he explains in the
letter, meant to keep away from the country because of it. He wrote:--
"The part of our voyage between Manilla and Kamchatka will afford you,
I hope, complete satisfaction. It was the newest, the most interesting,
and certainly, from the everlasting fogs which enveloped the land in
the latitudes we traversed, the most difficult. These fogs are such
that it has taken one hundred and fifty days to explore a part of the
coast which Captain King, in the third volume of Cook's last voyage,
supposes might be examined in the course of two months. During this
period I rested only ten days, three in the Bay of Ternai, two in the
Bay de Langle, and five in the Bay de Castries. Thus I wasted no time;
I even forebore to circumnavigate the island of Chicha (Yezo) by
traversing the Strait of Sangaar (Tsugaru). I should have wished to
anchor, if possible, at the northern point of Japan, and would perhaps
have ventured to send a boat ashore, though such a proceeding would
have required the most serious deliberation, as the boat would probably
have been stopped. Where a merchant ship is concerned an event of this
kind might be considered as of little importance, but the seizure of a
boat belonging to a ship of war could scarcely be otherwise regarded
than as a national insult; and the taking and burning of a few sampans
would be a very sorry compensation as against the people who would not
exchange a single European of whom they were desirous of making an
example, for one hundred Japanese. I was, however, too far from the
coast to include such an intention, and it is impossible for me to
judge at present what I should have done had the contrary been the
case.
"It would be difficult for me to find words to express to you the
fatigue attending this part of my voyage, during which I did not once
undress myself, nor did a single night pass without my being obliged to
spend several hours upon deck. Imagine to yourself six days of fog with
only two or three hours of clear weather, in seas extremely confined,
absolutely unknown, and where fancy, in consequence of the information
we had received, pictured to us shoals and currents that did not always
exist. From the place where we made the land on the eastern coast of
Tartary, to the strait which we discovered between Tchoka
(Saghalien) and Chicha, we did not fail to take the bearing of every
point, and you may rest assured that neither creek, port, nor river
escaped our attention, and that many charts, even of the coasts of
Europe, are less exact than those which we shall bring with us on our
return."
"The strait which we discovered" is still called Laperouse Strait on
most modern maps, though the Japanese usually call it Soya Strait. It
runs between Yezo, the large northerly island of Japan, and Saghalien.
Current maps also show the name Boussole Strait, after Laperouse's
ship, between Urup and Simusir, two of the Kurile chain of small
islands curving from Yezo to the thumblike extremity of Kamchatka.
At Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka the drawings of the artists and the
journals of the commander up to date were packed up, and sent to France
overland across Asiatic Russia, in charge of a young member of the
staff, J. B. B. de Lesseps. He was the only one of the expedition who
ever returned to Europe. By not coming to Australia he saved his life.
He published a book about his journey, a remarkable feat of land travel
in those days. He was the uncle of a man whose remarkable engineering
work has made Australia's relations with Europe much easier and more
speedy than they were in earlier years: that Ferdinand de Lesseps who
(1859-69) planned and carried out the construction of the Suez Canal.
The ships, after replenishing, sailed for the south Pacific,
where we shall follow the proceedings of Laperouse in rather closer
detail than has been considered necessary in regard to the American and
Asiatic phases of the voyage.
Chapter VI.
LAPEROUSE IN THE PACIFIC.
On the 6th December, 1787, the expedition made the eastern end of the
Navigator Islands, that is, the Samoan Group. As the ships approached,
a party of natives were observed squatting under cocoanut trees.
Presently sixteen canoes put off from the land, and their occupants,
after paddling round the vessels distrustfully, ventured to approach
and proffer cocoanuts in exchange for strings of beads and strips of
red cloth. The natives got the better of the bargain, for, when they
had received their price, they hurried off without delivering their own
goods. Further on, an old chief delivered an harangue from the shore,
holding a branch of Kava in his hand. "We knew from what we had read of
several voyages that it was a token of peace; and throwing him some
pieces of cloth we answered by the word 'TAYO,' which signified
'friend' in the dialect of the South Sea Islands; but we were not
sufficiently experienced to understand and pronounce distinctly the
words of the vocabularies we had extracted from Cook."
Nearly all the early navigators made a feature of compiling
vocabularies of native words, and Cook devoted particular care to this
task. Dr. Walter Roth, formerly protector of Queensland aboriginals
a trained observer, has borne testimony as recently as last year
(in THE TIMES, December 29, 1911) that a list of words collected from
Endeavour Strait blacks, and "given by Captain Cook, are all more or
less recognisable at the present day." But Cook's spellings were
intended to be pronounced in the English mode. Laperouse and his
companions by giving the vowels French values would hardly be likely to
make the English navigator's vocabularies intelligible.
The native canoes amused the French captain. They "could be of use only
to people who are expert swimmers, for they are constantly turned over.
This is an accident, however, at which they feel less surprise and
anxiety than we should at a hat's blowing off. They lift the canoe on
their shoulders, and after they have emptied it of the water, get into
it again, well assured that they will have the same operation to
perform within half an hour, for it is as difficult to preserve a
balance in these ticklish things as to dance upon a rope."
At Mauna Island (now called Tutuila) some successful bargaining was
done with glass beads in exchange for pork and fruits. It surprised
Laperouse that the natives chose these paltry ornaments rather than
hatchets and tools. "They preferred a few beads which could be of no
utility, to anything we could offer them in iron or cloth."
Two days later a tragedy occurred at this island, when Captain de
Langle, the commander of the ASTROLABE, and eleven of the crew were
murdered. He made an excursion inland to look for fresh water,
and found a clear, cool spring in the vicinity of a village. The ships
were not urgently in need of water, but de Langle "had embraced the
system of Cook, and thought fresh water a hundred times preferable to
what had been some time in the hold. As some of his crew had slight
symptoms of scurvy, he thought, with justice, that we owed them every
means of alleviation in our power. Besides, no island could be compared
with this for abundance of provisions. The two ships had already
procured upwards of 500 hogs, with a large quantity of fowls, pigeons
and fruits; and all these had cost us only a few beads."
Laperouse himself doubted the prudence of sending a party inland, as he
had observed signs of a turbulent spirit among the islanders. But de
Langle insisted on the desirableness of obtaining fresh water where it
was abundant, and "replied to me that my refusal would render me
responsible for the progress of the scurvy, which began to appear with
some violence." He undertook to go at the head of the party, and,
relying on his judgment, the commander consented.
Two boats left the ship at about noon, and landed their casks
undisturbed. But when the party returned they found a crowd of over a
thousand natives assembled, and a dangerous disposition soon revealed
itself amongst them. It is possible that the Frenchmen had,
unconsciously, offended against some of their superstitious rites.
Certainly they had not knowingly been provoked. They had
peacefully bartered their fruits and nuts for beads, and had been
treated in a friendly fashion throughout. But the currents of passion
that sweep through the minds of savage peoples baffle analysis.
Something had disturbed them; what it was can hardly be surmised. One
of the officers believed that the gift of some beads to a few, excited
the envy of the others. It may be so; mere envy plays such a large part
in the affairs even of civilised peoples, that we need not wonder to
find it arousing the anger of savages. Laperouse tells what occurred in
these terms:--
"Several canoes, after having sold their ladings of provisions on board
our ships, had returned ashore, and all landed in this bay, so that it
was gradually filled. Instead of two hundred persons, including women
and children, whom M. de Langle found when he arrived at half past one,
there were ten or twelve hundred by three o'clock. He succeeded in
embarking his water; but the bay was by this time nearly dry, and he
could not hope to get his boats afloat before four o'clock, when the
tide would have risen. He stepped into them, however, with his
detachment, and posted himself in the bow, with his musket and his
marines, forbidding them to fire unless he gave orders.
"This, he began to realise, he would soon be forced to do. Stones flew
about, and the natives, only up to the knees in water, surrounded the
boats within less than three yards. The marines who were in the
boats, attempted in vain to keep them off. If the fear of commencing
hostilities and being accused of barbarity had not checked M. de
Langle, he would unquestionably have ordered a general discharge of his
swivels and musketry, which no doubt would have dispersed the mob, but
he flattered himself that he could check them without shedding blood,
and he fell a victim to his humanity.
"Presently a shower of stones thrown from a short distance with as much
force as if they had come from a sling, struck almost every man in the
boat. M. de Langle had only time to discharge the two barrels of his
piece before he was knocked down; and unfortunately he fell over the
larboard bow of the boat, where upwards of two hundred natives
instantly massacred him with clubs and stones. When he was dead, they
made him fast by the arm to one of the tholes of the long boat, no
doubt to secure his spoil. The BOUSSOLE'S long-boat, commanded by M.
Boutin, was aground within four yards of the ASTROLABE'S, and parallel
with her, so as to leave a little channel between them, which was
unoccupied by the natives. Through this all the wounded men, who were
so fortunate as not to fall on the other side of the boats, escaped by
swimming to the barges, which, happily remaining afloat, were enabled
to save forty-nine men out of the sixty-one."
Amongst the wounded was Pere Receveur, priest, naturalist and
shoemaker, who later on died of his injuries at Botany Bay, and whose
tomb there is as familiar as the Laperouse monument.
The anger of the Frenchmen at the treachery of the islanders was
not less than their grief at the loss of their companions. Laperouse,
on the first impulse, was inclined to send a strongly-armed party
ashore to avenge the massacre. But two of the officers who had escaped
pointed out that in the cove where the incident occurred the trees came
down almost to the sea, affording shelter to the natives, who would be
able to shower stones upon the party, whilst themselves remaining
beyond reach of musket balls.
"It was not without difficulty," he wrote, "that I could tear myself
away from this fatal place, and leave behind the bodies of our murdered
companions. I had lost an old friend; a man of great understanding,
judgment, and knowledge; and one of the best officers in the French
navy. His humanity had occasioned his death. Had he but allowed himself
to fire on the first natives who entered into the water to surround the
boats, he would have prevented his own death as well as those of eleven
other victims of savage ferocity. Twenty persons more were severely
wounded; and this event deprived us for the time of thirty men, and the
only two boats we had large enough to carry a sufficient number of men,
armed, to attempt a descent. These considerations determined my
subsequent conduct. The slightest loss would have compelled me to burn
one of my ships in order to man the other. If my anger had required
only the death of a few natives, I had had an opportunity after the
massacre of sinking and destroying a hundred canoes containing
upwards of five hundred persons, but I was afraid of being mistaken in
my victims, and the voice of my conscience saved their lives."
It was then that Laperouse resolved to sail to Botany Bay, of which he
had read a description in Cook's Voyages. His long-boats had been
destroyed by the natives, but he had on board the frames of two new
ones, and a safe anchorage was required where they could be put
together. His crews were exasperated; and lest there should be a
collision between them and other natives he resolved that, while
reconnoitring other groups of islands to determine their correct
latitude, he would not permit his sailors to land till he reached
Botany Bay. There he knew that he could obtain wood and water.
On December 14 Oyolava (now called Upolu) was reached. Here again the
ships were surrounded by canoes, and the angry French sailors would
have fired upon them except for the positive orders of their commander.
Throughout this unfortunate affair the strict sense of justice, which
forbade taking general vengeance for the misdeeds of particular people,
stands out strongly in the conduct of Laperouse. He acknowledged in
letters written from Botany Bay, that in future relations with
uncivilised folk he would adopt more repressive measures, as experience
taught him that lack of firm handling was by them regarded as weakness.
But his tone in all his writings is humane and kindly.
The speculations of Laperouse concerning the origin of these
peoples, are interesting, and deserve consideration by those who speak
and write upon the South Seas. He was convinced that they are all
derived from an ancient common stock, and that the race of
woolly-haired men to be found in the interior of Formosa were the
far-off parents of the natives of the Philippines, Papua, New Britain,
the New Hebrides, the Friendly Islands, the Carolines, Ladrones, and
Sandwich Groups. He believed that in those islands the interior of
which did not afford complete shelter the original inhabitants were
conquered by Malays, after which aboriginals and invaders mingled
together, producing modifications of the original types. But in Papua,
the Solomons and the New Hebrides, the Malays made little impression.
He accounted for differences in appearance amongst the people of the
islands he visited by the different degrees of Malay intermixture, and
believed that the very black people found on some islands, "whose
complexion still remains a few shades deeper than that of certain
families in the same islands" were to be accounted for by certain
families making it "a point of honour not to contaminate their blood."
The theory is at all events striking. We have a "White Australia
policy" on the mainland to-day; this speculation assumes a kind of
"Black Australasia policy" on the part of certain families of islanders
from time immemorial.
The Friendly Islands were reached in December, but the commander
had few and unimportant relations with them. On the 13th January, 1788,
the ships made for Norfolk Island, and came to anchor opposite the
place where Cook was believed to have landed. The sea was running high
at the time, breaking violently on the rocky shores of the north east.
The naturalists desired to land to collect specimens, but the heavy
breakers prevented them. The commander permitted them to coast along
the shore in boats for about half a league but then recalled them.